New Jersey governor to ease medical marijuana access for kids after father begs for daughter's life

Children in New Jersey may soon have access to medical marijuana after Governor Chris Christie announced that he has agreed to sign, under two stipulations, a bill that will allow families to determine their own health care.

New Jersey constituents have pressed Christie to sign the bill,
which would allow medical cannabis dispensaries to grow more than
three strains of marijuana and provide edible forms of the drug.
Digestible methods are better suited to children because the
process maintains the medical properties while removing many of
the ‘high-like’ aspects popular among recreational smokers.

Christie said on Friday that he would sign the bill into law only
under the conditions that edible forms of marijuana are available
only to qualified children, and that a psychiatrist and
pediatrician must authorize the child’s prescription. Neither
provision would preclude children from gaining access to medical
cannabis, but refusing to allow adult patients access to edible
marijuana may pose an unnecessary risk to those with respiratory
illnesses.

Medical marijuana is currently legal in New Jersey, but the bill
would permit growers to produce more strains of the drug, thereby
treating a higher number of patients more accurately. Children
currently need three doctors’ signatures in order to be
prescribed cannabis. With the current bill proposing that only
one signature be needed, Christie seems to be splitting the
difference.

The state legislature has not yet revealed if it would consider
the changes.

Cannabis can help relieve symptoms from cancer, muscular
dystrophy, lupus, and over 30 other illnesses. The drug is known
to combat insomnia, lack of appetite, general pain, movement
disorders, glaucoma, and vomiting, among other maladies.

“As I have repeatedly noted, I believe that parents, not
government regulators, are best suited to decide how to care for
their children,” Christie said in a Friday press conference.
“I am making commonsense recommendations to this legislation
to ensure sick children receive the treatment their parents
prefer, while maintaining appropriate safeguards. I am calling on
the legislature to reconvene quickly and address these issues so
that children in need can get the treatment they need.”

The governor made headlines earlier this week when Brian Wilson,
the father of a two-year-old girl who suffers from a severe form
of epilepsy known as Dravet syndrome, approached him asking for
help.

“These are complicated issues,” Christie said, to which
Wilson replied it should actually be quite an easy
decision.

“I know you think it’s simple and it’s not,” Christie
responded.

Wilson told reporters after the scrum that if Christie did not
agree to sign the bill on Friday he would be forced to move his
family to Colorado, where children with Dravet have been cured of
overwhelming seizures by using cannabis.